Life gets more complicated all the time.

As you may or may not know, Paul is a bubble boy. Skin problems (eczema), breathing issues (asthma), and lots of allergies (medical and food related). 

Today I did something I've never done. I contacted the Rice Dream company about their rice milk ingredients. 

I've contacted numerous restaurants and looked up ingredient list for tons of food choices. We never buy anything without reading the label- we always ask, "did you read that?" Companies change their ingredients all the time, with no warning. 

Today I actually inquired about a change in ingredients. Here's my email:

My husband has anaphylactic reactions to all animal milk, as well as all nuts. And more recently has developed an allergy to sunflower seeds and sunflower oil. This one has been particularly annoying because sunflower oil is the new fancy, more healthy, latest trend or whatever to put in everything. Rice milk is my husband's go to milk, and it is listed as an "and/or" oil in your rice milk. This makes us sad because this basically takes it out of the running for options for us. We make pumpkin pie with rice milk, and pancakes, and tons of other things too. But now, we can't use it. 

I was wondering if there are any plans in the works to simplify or change your ingredients by choosing just one oil to put in your rice milk? Of course, preferably not sunflower oil in our case. 

Almond milk, which doesn't work for his nut allergy either has already basically taken over the dairy free shelves in our stores (where there is one shelf of rice, one of soy, and 1/2 of coconut, there are 5 shelves of almond milk). And now rice milk has been stolen away too. Not from a change by your company (I'm pretty sure it's always been labeled and made that way) but by my husband's irrational body.  He doesn't like the taste of soy, and coconut is actually bad for his particular case of cholesterol issue. Rice was our perfect option. I was just inquiring and letting you know this issue exists in the world. Thanks for your time, looking forward to your comments. 

-Cori 

Hopefully I hear something back. Well, hopefully something positive, but anything at all would be nice. 

It is annoying to me how much almond milk has taken over the dairy free market. And how vegan anything means pretty much nothing, given vegans eat as many nuts as possible- and for good reason. It just doesn't help our unique case. 

Sunflower oil is in everything from chips and frozen fries to raisins and cereals. It's a hard thing because it is always an "and/or" oil, which means it may or may not be in any given bag or box, but we still can't get it. Sunflower is also not a top allergen, so it's not listed at the bottom or in bold letters, like sometimes allergens are. Now we have to carefully read every ingredient. And it will not be included in the processing warning with the other allergens. So when it could be a risk in the facility, we don't know. 

Ah, the life of an allergy family.